


The Road Outside My House is Paved With Good Intentions

by SandrC



Series: Balance My Deeds With My Misdeeds [36]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon compliant trauma, Dealing with past trauma, Lucretia Did Nothing Wrong, PTSD, and every forgives at their own pace, i have word issues too, i love davenport, im kinda projecting lmao, please develop this small rage gnome so muvh, speech issues, the road to forgiveness is long and arduous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 20:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: A sea of white noise and fuzz swallows him and he screams his name because that's the only word he has left but bit by bit, that too is eroded by tendrils of black opal and dark skin and light hair and twenty years leeched from a face that he wanted to protect so long ago. When his heart wakes him, hammering against his chest as a rabbit kicking the predator that has it in its mouth, he gasps and recites poem and story and song until he's certain he has words still. That he has agency still. That he's still Davenport. That he's still here.





	The Road Outside My House is Paved With Good Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> "Hire a construction crew cause it's hell on the engine!"
> 
> I just...am back on my bullshit, I guess, while I wait for the new boys to actually exist in-game. (I love the new boys so much.)
> 
> Um...warning for self-destructive behaviors, visceral trauma, sucidal ideation, mentions of attempted suicide (in passing but...), and other trauma-based things??? Like...this is deeply noodling based around the exploration of post-canon trauma.
> 
> I've always loved the concept of man v. self as a driving antagonist because there really is no...winning to say? Only surviving.
> 
> Anyway, welcome to another car on the Pain Train. I have no regrets.
> 
> (Also, tenses may be a bit fucky but that's just cause we post without beta like MEN!!!!)

Sometimes, when Davenport woke up, he was immediately afraid that he was back in that static sea, drowning under the weight of his own name. Once the adrenaline of becoming himself and remembering himself wore off, he found that his mouth often refused to cooperate with his brain. He had a stutter now, slowly fading but persistent in a way that Davenport wished upon any other trait he had gained over the decade he had been gone.

(Therapy helped. Therapy helped with a lot—the stutter, PTSD, anger—but the fucking stutter! It helped but it never fixed.)

But haunting or not, frustrating or not, the stutter was still speech. It was expression. It was the silence that plagued his dreams and the paralysis that followed that truly scared him. It was the gripping horror that he felt every year as he stared at the sky, waiting for the stars to wink out and the Hunger to descend that kept him up. It was the blank feeling of watching his birthday come and go and realizing that, for the first time in a century, it matters.

That is fear.

Recklessly piloting his boat was the only thing keeping the thoughts of mortality and static and silence and fear at bay. He drove his boat like he drove the StarBlazter, like the Hunger was hot on his heels, and he crested wave after wave with a shock of sea foam and unbridled whoops of joy.

When he docked at Bottlenose Cove and took a breather, chilling with Merle and his kids, it was like the world stopped turning to catch up with his frenzied running. The waves brushed against the shore of his mind with a heartbeat that he let wash away the sandcastles of memories he built. Mookie and Mavis splashed about in the tide and Davenport found joy in searching the tidepools to observe the small worlds the ocean had built thrive at the whim of the moon. And Merle, ever patient and loving, rubbed his back gently during long nights of wordless crying and fists beating against his head because stupid stupid simple Davenport can't say more than his name!

Merle was a comfort in the home, at port, always waving with a gleeful laugh and one of dozens of kids wrapped around his torso. Magnus was a comfort in the home as well, training a large mop of a dog to keep him company on long sea nights. Taako was a comfort at a distance, his shared distaste for Lucretia's actions a brief respite from "you should forgive her already, Dav"; only in small doses though, cause it took too much energy to hate someone. Barry and Lup were comforts on the breeze, dipping in and out whenever their new jobs as reapers allowed it, dazzling their former captain and current friend with gory tales of idiots fucking with life and death. And Lucretia? She was a comfort best chilled.

(A sea of white noise and fuzz swallows him and he screams his name because that's the only word he has left but bit by bit, that too is eroded by tendrils of black opal and dark skin and light hair and twenty years leeched from a face that he wanted to protect so long ago. When his heart wakes him, hammering against his chest as a rabbit kicking the predator that has it in its mouth, he gasps and recites poem and story and song until he's certain he has words still. That he has agency still. That he's still Davenport. That he's still here.)

Forgiveness is a long and lonely road. Unlike Taako, he plans to gain back what Lucretia had unwittingly torn to shreds when she took so much of him. So he touches base, taking note of the way that Magnus wrings his hands when he mentions the silver Borzoi that she has now—stress and blades and poisons and tremors brought on by age and nerves and anxiety and depression but _everything's fine really! I'm just being silly!_ —and how she seems to be sleeping just fine now; _not that she was having issues before, it's just better?!!!_ He listens to the soft fondness that Lup lets creep into her voice when she mentions popping in from time to time to check on her—making sure she wasn't breeding more voidfish right under our noses, the wry little shit, but also clearing out shelves of shitty food and _does that woman even know how to operate a kettle?! Why does she own one then?!_ —though she never outright states that she dreads the call for business instead of pleasure. He tilts his head back and allows Barry whispered tales of angry screaming and loud debates— _no, I promise, she just forgot who I was for a moment and that scared us both for a quick go, she's fine_ —and sharing books and gentle ribbing and riddles and history wash over him. He entertains Taako's angry complaints about how she seems totally unrepentant— _I mean seriously, how can she not care so much this is some sort of bullshit I tell ya! Fucking sad is what it is...and have you seen the shit she keeps in that so-called kitchen of hers?! Fuck man!_ —while smiling gently at the undertones of pink salt and elderberry wine and poppyseed and apricots and mangos. He sought comfort when he could and soon he found the strength to speak right within reach.

It was a long and pained road, docking in Bottlenose Cove, refusing Merle's offer to stay the night, calling up Avi, who called Magnus, who called Angus, who called Hurley and Sloane to pick him up, and eventually stopping in front of Lucretia's new home at the base of the Teeth with a sheet of ink-blotted paper crumples nervously in shaking hands that dripped with indigo-tinted sweat.

Lucretia opened the door and a fucking strange-ass horse poked its wet, sniffly nose out the crack and immediately entered Davenport's open mouth. He sputtered as the Borzoi sneezed and he tried to get the taste of dog-snot off of his uvula and Lucretia let out an unfettered, sincere laugh. The tension loosened and Davenport greeted his friend with an equally sincere laugh.

His forgiveness was slow and stuttering, skipped consonants and frustrated swearing when words stuck in his throat. It was a paragraph he wrote down on the ride there to explain, in all its muddled complexity, the core issue of his feelings. It was a few angry moments of crying and balling his hands into tiny fists to beat against his head because he could fucking knock the words loose, they were there but fuck!!! In the end they both were tired from the exertion of crying and talking and hating so much that they fell asleep holding one another on the small, simple couch in Lucretia's dusty living room. Davenport woke up to Lucretia having a fit in her sleep, moaning and tensing up against her invisible demons, and reached out to smooth her hair like he did so many years ago. Her Borzoi—lovingly called Phyrrus—pulled a knit blanket up over her shoulders and laid down on the floor where her hand could easily reach him. Davenport's heart swelled with an emotion that he had no words for and that he didn't want words for. If all he had left in the end was this emotion, warmth and comfort and catharsis and love, and this memory then he could be content to let the static drown him again.

In the morning there were pancakes courtesy of Taako and Lup— _shut the fuck up old man, you're lucky I don't magic missile your ass back into seven cycles ago_ —and a warm embrace courtesy of both Merle—a hand on Davenport's ass despite the fact that they were both the same height—and Magnus—who weepily said that Phyrrus was _such a good boy!_ Barry had mixed the best goddamn mimosas that Davenport had had the pleasure of enjoying since that one cycle— _you remember, the one where water was so polluted that they became mixologist masters? Yeah, that one_ —and Kravitz played an aria on one of Johann's old violas— _though, admittedly, it would've sounded much better if I had tuned it more like a viola than a violin._ Angus presented them both with a strong cup of warm coffee— _you both look like you need it, if you don't mind me saying, and Aunt Lup dumped all your tea into the compost bin_ —as Lup cheered in agreement— _fucking fantasy Lipton sucks ass, Creesh, you should know this by now_! Merle and Davenport shared little crass jokes that flew over Mookie's head— _wuzza hentai daddy?_ —but not Mavis'— _Dad...Dad that's...that's gross...ew..._ —while Lucretia hobbled to a chair pulled out in front of her dining room table— _oh, you put the leaf in. I'm assuming that this was done late last night?_ —and soaked it all in.

It was there, surrounded by her friends and family, that Lucretia finally let go. A content sigh and Kravitz and Lup and Barry all shared a Look. She had gone and it was about as peaceful as it could have ever been.

The nightmares never left. They never would but...Davenport was okay with that.

It was the least he could do for her. Remember and cope.


End file.
